If the Sun is Shining
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day one hundred and seventy-five: Sunshine Girls #9 Rachel and Quinn are paired together for Glee, and one of them wants to talk Sunshine Girls 1 of 2 .


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a second cycle, and then a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eigth cycle. Which MEANS **cycle 9** is here, which MEANS... GLEE IS BACK!! YAY!_

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**"If the Sun is Shining…"  
Rachel & Quinn  
Sequel to Divergence, Sunshine, Beams & Rays, Solar Eclipse, Let the Sunshine In, Sunrise Sunset, Dawn, and Ain't No Sunshine**

A few weeks had gone by since the forgotten Sunshine Girls memories had been brought back to light. In that time, both Rachel and Quinn left the subject completely off the table. Still, just because they didn't talk about it didn't mean they didn't think about it or know that the other was thinking about it, too. They were both busy enough that it just remained in the background.

And then, one day, Mr. Schuester had set out an assignment for them. They would be matched in teams of two, girls with girls, guys with guys. Then, each female duet would be pitted against a male duet, doing the same song, however they wanted to interpret it.

The matching began. Puck got Artie, Kurt got Matt, and Finn got Mike. Then it was the girls' turn. Brittany was first paired with Mercedes. Tina was called up next, and she was revealed to have been paired to Santana. Rachel and Quinn looked to each other, knowing what this meant for them. Their duo was put up against Puck and Artie.

After the practice was done, Rachel approached Quinn slowly. "I-I can ask Mr. Schuester to switch…" she offered. Quinn shook her head, standing up.

"No, it's alright," Quinn promised with a nod. "I have to go, but, uh… we can work on it this weekend, okay?" she nodded.

"Okay," she repeated. She hesitated for a moment before asking, "Would you… we can work at my house, if you want. O-or we could…"

"No, that's good, I can come over," she nodded. Their plans were set, so they each went on their way.

On Saturday morning, Rachel awaited Quinn's arrival. She wasn't sure why she felt it to be necessary, but she'd given the house a deep clean-up. Pop and Dad woke up to the smell of lemon and dustless surfaces. "Is it a boy?" Pop had asked by way of greeting. Rachel paused, with the duster still in hand.

"No," she shook her head. Pop and Dad froze, looking at her.

"Rae Rae?" Pop's eyebrow raised. It took her a second to realize what it was that had gotten into their heads, and the bit of stress she'd been feeling was replaced by amused laughter.

"No, guys, it's a Glee Club thing, that's all," she punctuated with a shake of the duster, which made her sneeze. She blinked, then pointed back to the kitchen. "I made breakfast."

"I love your Suzy Homemaker streaks, Rae Rae," Pop told her, kissing her forehead on the way into the kitchen. The two of them were supposed to head out for the better part of the day, which was perfect, really… She knew them, they'd start on questions…

They hadn't left yet when the door bell rang. Rachel went to answer, finding Quinn, with the same kind of look on her face as she did. "Hi," Quinn nodded. Before Rachel could reply, tell her to come in, she heard Dad's voice.

"Quinn Fabray…" Both girls turned. Pop moved up, smiling.

"I don't know if you remember us, I…"

"No, I remember you," Quinn chuckled.

"Good," Pop laughed, moving to give her a quick hug. "It's good to see you again. I'm afraid we have to get going, but you girls have fun, alright?" The two nodded, and soon they were on their own.

"Shall we?" Rachel broke the silence. Quinn nodded, so Rachel led the way up to her room. Quinn had only ever been to their old place, so she couldn't expect her to display any directional memory.

The songs, like the partners, had been assigned at random from Mr. Schuester's selections. Rachel had been fairly confident about it from the moment they'd read the small blue card, so once she and Quinn got to work on it, they focused on the task at hand and nothing more. Eventually though, they had to take a break. Both of them were tired, Quinn more so than Rachel, so it was needed. Rachel went down into the kitchen to get something to drink and eat, leaving Quinn in her room.

She looked around from where she sat for a while, observing the details of Rachel Berry's inner sanctum… It was about what she'd expected. But then, memory came to bite her in the ass.

Looking up at the shelves, she spotted a few volumes she recognized as photo albums. There was one of them, with a ladybug sparkling on the binding… She remembered she'd given it to Rachel for her birthday, when she'd turned six. Now she couldn't stop thinking about it… that was the thing she'd feared would happen if she came, but now there she was.

She hesitated, listening for approaching steps in the hall before moving to take the album. She was a little winded, probably from practice, so she sat back down with the album to look through it.

Seeing more images of her, and Rachel… as the Sunshine Girls… it was odd, she'd say that. She remembered a lot of these now… Birthdays, holidays… Sunshine Summits… In the last few weeks, she'd been thinking about it, all of it, and she'd come to the conclusion that – as difficult as it could be – she would have to go ahead and talk about it with her. There were a lot of things going through her mind about this and, as helpful and pleasant as her mother had been in discussing it, she knew there was only one who could give her the answers she needed. It was in understanding this that she'd realized she'd been unfair holding back from Rachel. When they were paired up, she knew this had to be her chance.

"Here we are, ice tea, and Dad's signature almond cookies," Rachel announced as she returned. Quinn startled, shutting the album as she looked back, a deer in headlights.

"Hey…" she spoke slowly. Rachel saw the album and looked back to Quinn. "Busted?" Quinn nodded to herself. Rachel put down the tray, stepping up.

"Do you want to… talk?" Rachel asked.

"I… yeah," Quinn told her, standing to put the album back. Rachel nodded to herself, almost bracing herself for what she'd been waiting…

She looked back up, and there she saw… something was wrong. "Quinn?" She was holding on to the shelves.

"I-I don't feel… something's… Rachel…" her voice quivered – she was scared.

"What's wrong? No, forget that, let's go," she held out her hand. Quinn looked at her. "It's gonna be okay," she nodded as Quinn took her hand.

TO BE CONTINUED... IN FICLET #200

**POLL!**  
_I've been curious about this, and I never asked, and this is pretty much the last chance I'll have to do this, because in the next installment it'll be revealed, but: I've been curious to know what YOU think happened between Rachel and Quinn when they were six that broke them apart as friends :)_


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